Plate 9: Arch of Constantine in Rome (Arco di Costantino in Roma), from "Antichità Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica, e de' primi Imperatori"
ca. 1748
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Plate: 5 1/2 × 10 7/16 in. (13.9 × 26.5 cm) Sheet: 12 13/16 × 18 3/4 in. (32.5 × 47.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1937
Accession Number
37.45.3(76)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the grandeur of ancient Rome through Giovanni Battista Piranesi's * 9: Arch of in Rome*, an exquisite etching from his seminal series *Antichità Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica, e de' primi Imperatori* (Roman Antiquities of the Time of the Republic and the First Emperors), created around 1748. Piranesi, a masterful Venetian-born artist and architect, captured the iconic Arch of Constantine—a triumphal monument erected in 315 AD to celebrate Emperor Constantine's victory at the Milvian Bridge. This plate, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department,...
About the Artist
Giovanni Battista Piranesi · 1720–1778
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) was an Italian printmaker, architect, and antiquarian whose visionary etchings of Rome and imaginary prisons revolutionized architectural representation and profoundly influenced both Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Piranesi stands as one of the most important printmakers of the eighteenth century, fundamentally shaping European perceptions of ancient Rome an...